Hello all,
As far as I understand, standard C preprocessor works with text files and
knows nothing about C but that's not right with DMC which refuses to
preprocess ("-e" option) plain text files.
I mean, is it right that there's no way to use DMC to preprocess non-c (or
invalid c) files? Am I missing something? I get lexical errors with DMC where
I get correctly preprocessed text files with "cl /P" or "gcc -E".
Thanks,
Paul.

As far as I understand, standard C preprocessor works with text files and
knows nothing about C but that's not right with DMC which refuses to
preprocess ("-e" option) plain text files.
I mean, is it right that there's no way to use DMC to preprocess non-c (or
invalid c) files? Am I missing something? I get lexical errors with DMC where
I get correctly preprocessed text files with "cl /P" or "gcc -E".

A standard compliant preprocessor will not work with text files that are
invalid C code. The preprocessor is defined to work by tokenizing the
source text into preprocessor tokens; if there are non-C tokens in the
source text, it will (correctly) fail.

ok, dusting off many years of rust in my C programming, trying dmc, and what
seems
to be perfectly valid cpp code (hello world) generates three errors, mostly abut
expecting ; or whatever after } or { or return statement.
I assume this is a setup issue, any thoughts?

ok, dusting off many years of rust in my C programming, trying dmc, and what
seems
to be perfectly valid cpp code (hello world) generates three errors, mostly
abut
expecting ; or whatever after } or { or return statement.
I assume this is a setup issue, any thoughts?

yep, that was it!!
I have this html 'book' called teach yourself c++ in 21 days, and I copy and
paste
the examples into the editor and compile them, and they seem to have syntax
errors
sometimes. Maybe the rest will be better, and maybe this is a good way to
learn, I
dunno, but it seems odd that the author would do this.
It's also odd that I'm not getting better error messaging from any of the
compilers, that would make it easier to fix the errors. I am trying out dmc,
turbo
c++ 3.0, and turbo c++ 10.1. All give basically the same cryptic error message.
Anything better out there? Ideally I'd like to find something to make games
with,
something that I can do graphics and sound with, not create applications or
standard forms or the like. More of a console app I guess?

It's also odd that I'm not getting better error messaging from any of the
compilers, that would make it easier to fix the errors. I am trying out dmc,
turbo
c++ 3.0, and turbo c++ 10.1. All give basically the same cryptic error message.
Anything better out there? Ideally I'd like to find something to make games
with,
something that I can do graphics and sound with, not create applications or
standard forms or the like. More of a console app I guess?

Lousy error messages is a standard feature of C++. It's fallout from the
syntax being so complicated, the compiler cannot very well guess what
you were trying to do.

A standard compliant preprocessor will not work with text files that are
invalid C code. The preprocessor is defined to work by tokenizing the
source text into preprocessor tokens; if there are non-C tokens in the
source text, it will (correctly) fail.

Right, preprocessor works with C tokens but not necessary with C programs.
Here's
an example:
-[cut a.c]-----------------
#define world Earth
hello, world
-[end cut]-----------------
Everything is built from correct tokens but "dmc -e a.c" refuses to preprocess
the
"program" with the following error:
a.c(2) : Error: missing ',' between declaration of 'The' and 'Earth'
Am I still wrong?

A standard compliant preprocessor will not work with text files that are
invalid C code. The preprocessor is defined to work by tokenizing the
source text into preprocessor tokens; if there are non-C tokens in the
source text, it will (correctly) fail.

an example:

Oops... It was:
-[cut a.c]-----------------
#define world The Earth
hello, world
-[end cut]-----------------

Everything is built from correct tokens but "dmc -e a.c" refuses to preprocess
the
"program" with the following error:
a.c(2) : Error: missing ',' between declaration of 'The' and 'Earth'
Am I still wrong?

A standard compliant preprocessor will not work with text files that are
invalid C code. The preprocessor is defined to work by tokenizing the
source text into preprocessor tokens; if there are non-C tokens in the
source text, it will (correctly) fail.

Right, preprocessor works with C tokens but not necessary with C programs.
Here's
an example:
-[cut a.c]-----------------
#define world Earth
hello, world
-[end cut]-----------------
Everything is built from correct tokens but "dmc -e a.c" refuses to preprocess
the
"program" with the following error:
a.c(2) : Error: missing ',' between declaration of 'The' and 'Earth'
Am I still wrong?

dmc is still running the c compiler. All -e does is to send preprocessed
output to the console when an error is diagnosed. To preprocess only,
use the standalone preprocessor, sppn.exe.